Macworld.co.uk —
Apple's MobileMe migration continues to be troublesome, with the company last night confirming at least some problems that could be attributed to one of the MobileMe email servers.
In a note distributed last night, the company admits: "On Friday, July 18, 2008 (2008-07-18) we experienced a serious issue with one of our MobileMe mail servers. This issue is currently affecting approximately 1% of MobileMe members. Affected members are unable to send or receive email at www.me.com or access email using any email client software such as Mail on a Mac or Microsoft Outlook on a PC."
The company - which recently offered 30-day extensions on the period paid for by existing subscribers to compensate for the seriously troublesome migration - has also been forced to apologise for this all-new problem.
"We understand this is a serious issue and apologize for this service interruption. We are working hard to restore your service," the company informs.
The company claims all other MobileMe services are functional, but complaints continue to emerge from service users.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Parts of San Francisco network still locked out
The high-profile troubles on the city of San Francisco's computer network continue, despite a dramatic jailhouse intervention by the city's mayor this week.
While the city has regained control of the five devices at the heart of its FiberWAN network, which carries data between city government buildings, administrators are still locked out of the city's voice over Internet Protocol system and local area networks within the Sheriff's Department and the Recreation & Park Department. Assistant District Attorney Conrad Del Rosario revealed the ongoing problems Wednesday at a bail hearing for Terry Childs, the former network administrator with the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) who is accused of holding the city's networks hostage for the past 10 days.
[ Related reading: San Francisco's mayor gets back keys to the network ]
During that time, the networks have functioned normally, but IT staffers have been unable to make administrative changes to some of the city's critical routers and switches.
Childs' attorney, Erin Crane, had moved for a reduction in the US$5 million bail set in the case. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Lucy McCabe denied that motion Wednesday.
[ Related reading: IT admin locks up San Francisco's network ]
Childs' defense has portrayed him as a capable engineer, surrounded by incompetent management, who simply didn't trust anyone with the administrative passwords to the five network devices at the heart of the FiberWAN. On Monday, Childs had a secret meeting with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom where Childs turned over the passwords.
Del Rosario argued against any reduction of bail, noting that Childs handed over the passwords only after a scheduled July 19 power outage at the city's One Market Street data center failed to take down the FiberWAN. Because Childs did not store network configuration files on the routers' hard drives, a power outage would wipe this information out of memory, disabling the network until it was reconfigured, he said.
[Related reading: IT administrator pleads not guilty to network tampering ]
The assistant DA said it was "extremely suspicious" that Childs only communicated with the mayor after the network did not go out of service.
In court filings, prosecutors say they do not know where these critical router configuration files are located.
As the city's principal network engineer, Childs worked on about 1,100 networking devices throughout the city, Del Rosario said. Even with the FiberWAN passwords, there are still questions about the rest of these systems. "We do not know whether we have control of these devices," he said.
Crane said that her client was the victim of jealous co-workers who were upset because his good work made them look bad. "I think the entire thing is specious," she told the judge. "This is a DTIS management problem."
This is not Childs' first time in criminal court. He also served four years in Kansas prison on aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary charges, prosecutors said. Those charges stem from an incident that occurred when Childs was 16 years old, Crane said.
The court also ordered Childs to stay away from several of his former co-workers, including Jeana Pieralde, the DTIS director of security who was allegedly so afraid of Childs that she locked herself in a room in the data center, and his former supervisor Herb Tong, whom Childs felt was undermining his work at the department.
Prosecutors say that police found bullets when they searched his Pittsburg, California, home on July 13.
In a brief appearance before reporters after the hearing, Crane said that she and Childs were "deeply disappointed that bail had not been reduced."
Childs' next scheduled court date is a Sept. 24 pretrial hearing.
While the city has regained control of the five devices at the heart of its FiberWAN network, which carries data between city government buildings, administrators are still locked out of the city's voice over Internet Protocol system and local area networks within the Sheriff's Department and the Recreation & Park Department. Assistant District Attorney Conrad Del Rosario revealed the ongoing problems Wednesday at a bail hearing for Terry Childs, the former network administrator with the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) who is accused of holding the city's networks hostage for the past 10 days.
[ Related reading: San Francisco's mayor gets back keys to the network ]
During that time, the networks have functioned normally, but IT staffers have been unable to make administrative changes to some of the city's critical routers and switches.
Childs' attorney, Erin Crane, had moved for a reduction in the US$5 million bail set in the case. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Lucy McCabe denied that motion Wednesday.
[ Related reading: IT admin locks up San Francisco's network ]
Childs' defense has portrayed him as a capable engineer, surrounded by incompetent management, who simply didn't trust anyone with the administrative passwords to the five network devices at the heart of the FiberWAN. On Monday, Childs had a secret meeting with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom where Childs turned over the passwords.
Del Rosario argued against any reduction of bail, noting that Childs handed over the passwords only after a scheduled July 19 power outage at the city's One Market Street data center failed to take down the FiberWAN. Because Childs did not store network configuration files on the routers' hard drives, a power outage would wipe this information out of memory, disabling the network until it was reconfigured, he said.
[Related reading: IT administrator pleads not guilty to network tampering ]
The assistant DA said it was "extremely suspicious" that Childs only communicated with the mayor after the network did not go out of service.
In court filings, prosecutors say they do not know where these critical router configuration files are located.
As the city's principal network engineer, Childs worked on about 1,100 networking devices throughout the city, Del Rosario said. Even with the FiberWAN passwords, there are still questions about the rest of these systems. "We do not know whether we have control of these devices," he said.
Crane said that her client was the victim of jealous co-workers who were upset because his good work made them look bad. "I think the entire thing is specious," she told the judge. "This is a DTIS management problem."
This is not Childs' first time in criminal court. He also served four years in Kansas prison on aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary charges, prosecutors said. Those charges stem from an incident that occurred when Childs was 16 years old, Crane said.
The court also ordered Childs to stay away from several of his former co-workers, including Jeana Pieralde, the DTIS director of security who was allegedly so afraid of Childs that she locked herself in a room in the data center, and his former supervisor Herb Tong, whom Childs felt was undermining his work at the department.
Prosecutors say that police found bullets when they searched his Pittsburg, California, home on July 13.
In a brief appearance before reporters after the hearing, Crane said that she and Childs were "deeply disappointed that bail had not been reduced."
Childs' next scheduled court date is a Sept. 24 pretrial hearing.
Google launches Wikipedia rival
Google has launched Knol, its user-generated online encyclopedia, which it announced in December but had kept under wraps in private testing.
Although its goal and approach are similar to Wikipedia's -- to tap the collective knowledge of Internet users within an encyclopedia format -- Knol is different in several ways.
Knol will encourage writers to use their real names and stand behind their articles, and will give them the possibility to generate income from their work via Google ads.
"Every knol will have an author, or group of authors, who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good," wrote Knol product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally in an official blog posting Wednesday.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, has a culture of anonymity in which contributors rarely use their real names, and no ads appear on the site.
In addition, Knol apparently will have more controls over submissions and edits than Wikipedia. In Knol, readers can suggest changes to articles, and the authors have the final word on whether to accept or reject the feedback. "This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it," the Google officials wrote. Readers will also be able to rate articles and write reviews of them.
In Wikipedia, anyone can make changes to articles and have them appear instantly online.
Although in the blog posting knols are described as "authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects," a Google spokesman said that anyone can write an article.
"Google will have no advance knowledge of the content of a knol and we will not be doing editorial screening of content posted by users and authors," he wrote via e-mail.
In addition, Google will encourage authors to use their real names, but will not require it, he said. Google will give authors the ability to have their identity confirmed via a telephone or credit card verification process. Articles penned by these authors will appear with a "verified" stamp, he said.
Although its goal and approach are similar to Wikipedia's -- to tap the collective knowledge of Internet users within an encyclopedia format -- Knol is different in several ways.
Knol will encourage writers to use their real names and stand behind their articles, and will give them the possibility to generate income from their work via Google ads.
"Every knol will have an author, or group of authors, who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good," wrote Knol product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally in an official blog posting Wednesday.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, has a culture of anonymity in which contributors rarely use their real names, and no ads appear on the site.
In addition, Knol apparently will have more controls over submissions and edits than Wikipedia. In Knol, readers can suggest changes to articles, and the authors have the final word on whether to accept or reject the feedback. "This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it," the Google officials wrote. Readers will also be able to rate articles and write reviews of them.
In Wikipedia, anyone can make changes to articles and have them appear instantly online.
Although in the blog posting knols are described as "authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects," a Google spokesman said that anyone can write an article.
"Google will have no advance knowledge of the content of a knol and we will not be doing editorial screening of content posted by users and authors," he wrote via e-mail.
In addition, Google will encourage authors to use their real names, but will not require it, he said. Google will give authors the ability to have their identity confirmed via a telephone or credit card verification process. Articles penned by these authors will appear with a "verified" stamp, he said.
EMC revenue, profit defy economic woes
EMC's revenue grew 18 percent in the second quarter ended June 30, a result the company attributed to massive growth in the data enterprises need to store.
The company brought in US$3.67 billion worldwide in the quarter, up from $3.12 billion a year earlier. Revenue even rose 10 percent in the U.S., defying the country's economic woes, while gaining more in all of EMC's other regions around the world. The results beat expectations of analysts, who had predicted revenue of $3.56 billion, according to a Thomson Financial survey.
[ Related reading: VMware Q2 revenue up 54 percent, but slightly misses Street ]
"Despite continued economic uncertainty at the macro level, we believe spending on information infrastructure and virtual infrastructure technologies will continue to grow," said Joe Tucci, EMC's chairman, president and CEO, in a prepared statement.
The sales gains boosted EMC's profit as well, with net income reaching $377.5 million, or $0.18 per share, up from $334.4 million, or $0.16 per share, in last year's second quarter.
Information Storage, the company's largest business, saw revenue grow 14 percent to $2.87 billion. EMC said high points included midrange storage systems connected to Internet Protocol networks, as well as consulting and implementation. Meanwhile, the company's RSA security division had a 15 percent gain to $144 million, EMC said.
EMC derived a record 48 percent of its revenue from outside the U.S. in the quarter. The news was particularly good there, as both Asia-Pacific and Japan and Europe, Middle East and Africa had 27 percent gains in revenue from a year earlier. Latin America revenue grew 24 percent.
On Tuesday, VMware reported revenue growth of 54 percent from a year earlier, to $456 million. But that result fell slightly short of analysts' expectations.
The storage industry as a whole seems to be thriving despite economic weakness. Shipments of hard-disk drives hit 137 million units in the first quarter, up 21 percent from a year earlier, research company iSuppli said Tuesday.
Following the results, EMC's shares were up $1.24 to $13.70 in early afternoon trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company brought in US$3.67 billion worldwide in the quarter, up from $3.12 billion a year earlier. Revenue even rose 10 percent in the U.S., defying the country's economic woes, while gaining more in all of EMC's other regions around the world. The results beat expectations of analysts, who had predicted revenue of $3.56 billion, according to a Thomson Financial survey.
[ Related reading: VMware Q2 revenue up 54 percent, but slightly misses Street ]
"Despite continued economic uncertainty at the macro level, we believe spending on information infrastructure and virtual infrastructure technologies will continue to grow," said Joe Tucci, EMC's chairman, president and CEO, in a prepared statement.
The sales gains boosted EMC's profit as well, with net income reaching $377.5 million, or $0.18 per share, up from $334.4 million, or $0.16 per share, in last year's second quarter.
Information Storage, the company's largest business, saw revenue grow 14 percent to $2.87 billion. EMC said high points included midrange storage systems connected to Internet Protocol networks, as well as consulting and implementation. Meanwhile, the company's RSA security division had a 15 percent gain to $144 million, EMC said.
EMC derived a record 48 percent of its revenue from outside the U.S. in the quarter. The news was particularly good there, as both Asia-Pacific and Japan and Europe, Middle East and Africa had 27 percent gains in revenue from a year earlier. Latin America revenue grew 24 percent.
On Tuesday, VMware reported revenue growth of 54 percent from a year earlier, to $456 million. But that result fell slightly short of analysts' expectations.
The storage industry as a whole seems to be thriving despite economic weakness. Shipments of hard-disk drives hit 137 million units in the first quarter, up 21 percent from a year earlier, research company iSuppli said Tuesday.
Following the results, EMC's shares were up $1.24 to $13.70 in early afternoon trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Luxoft Acquires Romania’s ITC Networks
Acquisition of leading Romanian IT player increases Luxoft’s global delivery capability and telecom expertise
New York, NY; July 22nd 2008 - Luxoft, a global provider of high-end application and product development services, today announced it has acquired Bucharest-headquartered ITC Networks (ITCN), a leading Romanian software outsourcing provider specializing in the telecommunications industry. The combined company will have more than 3000 employees worldwide and an annual revenue run rate of over $150 million.
The acquisition of ITC Networks, which follows Luxoft’s April announcement of a new office opening in Vietnam, further expands the company’s global footprint. ITC Networks’ large scale delivery capability within the European Union, with its shared legal framework, ease of travel, and convenient time zones, makes Luxoft’s service offerings even more compelling for the European clientele. The deal also strengthens Luxoft’s expertise in the telecom industry, expanding its client portfolio with companies like Nortel Networks, Avaya, Trapeze Networks and others. In turn, existing ITC Networks clients will benefit from Luxoft’s best-of-breed processes and methodologies, financial stability, global delivery locations, and economies of scale.
“This acquisition is another step in Luxoft’s growth and strengthening of the company’s global presence,” said Dmitry Loschinin, President and CEO, Luxoft. “The tremendous telecoms aptitude of the combined team, prominent European Union location and shared commitment to engineering excellence will serve Luxoft, its clients and ITC Networks’ clients well for years to come.”
Doru Mardare, Managing Director of ITC Networks concurred. “This acquisition is a great boost to ITC Networks. We see full synergy with the Luxoft team in terms of our respective corporate cultures, ability to develop successful long term partnerships with leading global clients, and deep telecom industry expertise. We are looking forward to becoming part of a global entity, especially one that is growing as quickly as Luxoft.”
James Reeves, Vice President of R&D and World-Wide Customer Service Trapeze Networks, a client of ITC Networks, commented, “We are excited to work with such a world-class, global organization like Luxoft and are confident that this acquisition will further strengthen our relationship.”
About Luxoft
Luxoft, a member of the IBS Group, is an emerging global leader in application and product engineering outsourcing services for enterprise IT organizations and software vendors. Luxoft builds lasting partnerships with its clients, such as Boeing, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Dell, IBM, Sabre and other global leaders, based on the culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and deep domain expertise. Luxoft offers global delivery capability through its network of state-of-the-art delivery centers in North America, Central & Eastern Europe, and Asia. Luxoft’s customers benefit from the right mix of technology skills, industry knowledge, best-of-breed processes and methodologies, and a choice of engagement models.
Luxoft is the recipient of the 2007 Frost & Sullivan Global Outsourcing Growth Excellence & Customer Value Leadership Award, as well as the Applied Innovation Award from the IAOP and Wipro, ITAA and Forbes (together with Deutsche Bank). For more information visit: www.luxoft.com.
About ITC Networks
ITC Networks is a specialized provider of software engineering services for the telecommunications industry. ITC Networks’ range of services includes system and application development, re-engineering, software testing and test automation, maintenance, and support. ITC Networks is differentiated by its deep domain expertise, well defined processes and highly skilled engineers. ITC Networks’ satisfied clients include such industry leaders as Nortel Networks, Avaya, Trapeze Networks, and others. For more information please visit http://www.itcnetworks.ro
New York, NY; July 22nd 2008 - Luxoft, a global provider of high-end application and product development services, today announced it has acquired Bucharest-headquartered ITC Networks (ITCN), a leading Romanian software outsourcing provider specializing in the telecommunications industry. The combined company will have more than 3000 employees worldwide and an annual revenue run rate of over $150 million.
The acquisition of ITC Networks, which follows Luxoft’s April announcement of a new office opening in Vietnam, further expands the company’s global footprint. ITC Networks’ large scale delivery capability within the European Union, with its shared legal framework, ease of travel, and convenient time zones, makes Luxoft’s service offerings even more compelling for the European clientele. The deal also strengthens Luxoft’s expertise in the telecom industry, expanding its client portfolio with companies like Nortel Networks, Avaya, Trapeze Networks and others. In turn, existing ITC Networks clients will benefit from Luxoft’s best-of-breed processes and methodologies, financial stability, global delivery locations, and economies of scale.
“This acquisition is another step in Luxoft’s growth and strengthening of the company’s global presence,” said Dmitry Loschinin, President and CEO, Luxoft. “The tremendous telecoms aptitude of the combined team, prominent European Union location and shared commitment to engineering excellence will serve Luxoft, its clients and ITC Networks’ clients well for years to come.”
Doru Mardare, Managing Director of ITC Networks concurred. “This acquisition is a great boost to ITC Networks. We see full synergy with the Luxoft team in terms of our respective corporate cultures, ability to develop successful long term partnerships with leading global clients, and deep telecom industry expertise. We are looking forward to becoming part of a global entity, especially one that is growing as quickly as Luxoft.”
James Reeves, Vice President of R&D and World-Wide Customer Service Trapeze Networks, a client of ITC Networks, commented, “We are excited to work with such a world-class, global organization like Luxoft and are confident that this acquisition will further strengthen our relationship.”
About Luxoft
Luxoft, a member of the IBS Group, is an emerging global leader in application and product engineering outsourcing services for enterprise IT organizations and software vendors. Luxoft builds lasting partnerships with its clients, such as Boeing, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Dell, IBM, Sabre and other global leaders, based on the culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and deep domain expertise. Luxoft offers global delivery capability through its network of state-of-the-art delivery centers in North America, Central & Eastern Europe, and Asia. Luxoft’s customers benefit from the right mix of technology skills, industry knowledge, best-of-breed processes and methodologies, and a choice of engagement models.
Luxoft is the recipient of the 2007 Frost & Sullivan Global Outsourcing Growth Excellence & Customer Value Leadership Award, as well as the Applied Innovation Award from the IAOP and Wipro, ITAA and Forbes (together with Deutsche Bank). For more information visit: www.luxoft.com.
About ITC Networks
ITC Networks is a specialized provider of software engineering services for the telecommunications industry. ITC Networks’ range of services includes system and application development, re-engineering, software testing and test automation, maintenance, and support. ITC Networks is differentiated by its deep domain expertise, well defined processes and highly skilled engineers. ITC Networks’ satisfied clients include such industry leaders as Nortel Networks, Avaya, Trapeze Networks, and others. For more information please visit http://www.itcnetworks.ro
Nokia claims victory over Qualcomm in ongoing patent battle
The German Federal Patent Court ruled Wednesday that a Qualcomm GSM patent claim against Nokia is invalid, said the Finnish phone giant.
"This is the third court to conclude that Qualcomm’s patent claims against Nokia are without merit. The United Kingdom High Court, and the U.S. International Trade Commission, have both ruled asserted Qualcomm GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) patents to be invalid," said Nokia spokeswoman Anne Eckert.
Today’s decision is further evidence that Qualcomm does not have relevant and valid GSM patents and that it overstates its role as a wireless innovator, according to Nokia.
Nokia and Qualcomm are embroiled in a bitter battle that started back in 2006, at the heart of which is a licensing agreement between the two that expired in April last year.
"Nokia will be happy this ruling went their way, but this is not the end of this story by any means," said Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight.
The two companies are already gearing up for another trial in Delaware, which starts on Wednesday, and in Germany yet another hearing is scheduled for Oct. 22.
The stakes are very high; any fraction of a percentage in a final settlement between Qualcomm and Nokia will have a big impact, since Nokia sells such a large number of phones, according to Wood.
Qualcomm wasn't available for a comment.
But in the report for its second quarter 2008 Qualcomm wrote that as result of the dispute, it is not recording royalty revenue attributable to Nokia’s sales after April 9, 2007, until a court awards damages or the disputes are otherwise resolved by agreement with Nokia.
"This is the third court to conclude that Qualcomm’s patent claims against Nokia are without merit. The United Kingdom High Court, and the U.S. International Trade Commission, have both ruled asserted Qualcomm GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) patents to be invalid," said Nokia spokeswoman Anne Eckert.
Today’s decision is further evidence that Qualcomm does not have relevant and valid GSM patents and that it overstates its role as a wireless innovator, according to Nokia.
Nokia and Qualcomm are embroiled in a bitter battle that started back in 2006, at the heart of which is a licensing agreement between the two that expired in April last year.
"Nokia will be happy this ruling went their way, but this is not the end of this story by any means," said Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight.
The two companies are already gearing up for another trial in Delaware, which starts on Wednesday, and in Germany yet another hearing is scheduled for Oct. 22.
The stakes are very high; any fraction of a percentage in a final settlement between Qualcomm and Nokia will have a big impact, since Nokia sells such a large number of phones, according to Wood.
Qualcomm wasn't available for a comment.
But in the report for its second quarter 2008 Qualcomm wrote that as result of the dispute, it is not recording royalty revenue attributable to Nokia’s sales after April 9, 2007, until a court awards damages or the disputes are otherwise resolved by agreement with Nokia.
AT&T income growth spurred by iPhone, mobile revenue
AT&T reported growth in both its net income and revenue for the second quarter of 2008, with interest in Apple's iPhone spurring strong mobile and mobile data numbers.
AT&T on Wednesday reported net income of US $3.8 billion for the second quarter, up 31 percent from the $2.9 billion it reported in the second quarter of 2007. Adjusted net income was up slightly, from $4.3 billion to $4.5 billion, with the adjusted numbers excluding expenses related to AT&T's recent mergers.
Revenue for the second quarter was $30.9 billion, up 4.7 percent from the second quarter of 2007 or up 3.6 percent using adjusted numbers. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.76, meeting expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
AT&T has an exclusive agreement to provide mobile service for the iPhone in the U.S., and company officials said their deal with Apple has helped drive the growth. Apple released a new version of the iPhone, called iPhone 3G, on July 11, but strong sales of the new device didn't count on AT&T's second-quarter numbers, as the quarter ended June 30.
"AT&T is all about deploying and enhancing premier networks and products to deliver this world to both business and consumers," Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "The Apple iPhone 3G is a dramatic example of this transformation."
Sales of the iPhone 3G have been "everything we had anticipated and more," he added.
Even without the iPhone 3G to boost the quarter's numbers, AT&T reported that mobile revenue increased by 15.8 percent to $12 billion, with mobile service revenue up 14.8 percent.
Wireless data revenue was up 52 percent to $2.5 billion, AT&T said. Text messaging volumes on AT&T's mobile network tripled from the second quarter of 2007.
Wireline voice revenue was down 8.3 percent to $9.5 billion, but wireline data revenue was up 5.4 percent to $6.1 billion.
AT&T also reported that 170,000 new customers signed up for its U-verse TV service, which delivers television service over Internet Protocol networks. AT&T now has 549,000 U-verse TV subscribers, the company said.
AT&T on Wednesday reported net income of US $3.8 billion for the second quarter, up 31 percent from the $2.9 billion it reported in the second quarter of 2007. Adjusted net income was up slightly, from $4.3 billion to $4.5 billion, with the adjusted numbers excluding expenses related to AT&T's recent mergers.
Revenue for the second quarter was $30.9 billion, up 4.7 percent from the second quarter of 2007 or up 3.6 percent using adjusted numbers. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.76, meeting expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
AT&T has an exclusive agreement to provide mobile service for the iPhone in the U.S., and company officials said their deal with Apple has helped drive the growth. Apple released a new version of the iPhone, called iPhone 3G, on July 11, but strong sales of the new device didn't count on AT&T's second-quarter numbers, as the quarter ended June 30.
"AT&T is all about deploying and enhancing premier networks and products to deliver this world to both business and consumers," Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "The Apple iPhone 3G is a dramatic example of this transformation."
Sales of the iPhone 3G have been "everything we had anticipated and more," he added.
Even without the iPhone 3G to boost the quarter's numbers, AT&T reported that mobile revenue increased by 15.8 percent to $12 billion, with mobile service revenue up 14.8 percent.
Wireless data revenue was up 52 percent to $2.5 billion, AT&T said. Text messaging volumes on AT&T's mobile network tripled from the second quarter of 2007.
Wireline voice revenue was down 8.3 percent to $9.5 billion, but wireline data revenue was up 5.4 percent to $6.1 billion.
AT&T also reported that 170,000 new customers signed up for its U-verse TV service, which delivers television service over Internet Protocol networks. AT&T now has 549,000 U-verse TV subscribers, the company said.
Abaca Receives Network Products Guide 2008 Product Innovation Award
Abaca Technology Corporation, an innovator in email protection and messaging security, announced today that Network Products Guide, a Silicon Valley Communications publication and a world leading publication on technologies and solutions has named Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway™ VPG 1500, a winner of the 2008 Product Innovation Award. This annually venerated award recognizes and honors vendors from all over the world with innovative and ground-breaking products that are bringing essential and incremental changes and are setting the bar higher for others in all areas of information technology.
Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 is a virtual email security appliance and software solution that delivers unprecedented email protection against spam, viruses, phishing attacks, DoS attacks, directory harvest attacks and spoofing with zero tuning. Combined with Abaca’s ReceiverNet™ Service, the Virtual Email Protection Gateway provides secure, managed access to the Abaca ReceiverNet Protection Network and guarantees a minimum of 99 percent accuracy.
Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway provides all the benefits of the Abaca Email Protection Gateway appliance with the added benefits of virtualization including: maximization of existing hardware investments; standardized hardware for improved manageability, availability, flexibility, and cost savings; and simplified backup and disaster recovery. The Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 supports up to 1,500 licensed email users. To read more about this product innovation, please visit www.networkproductsguide.com/innovations/
“The goal of any product innovation must always remain a positive change, making or improving solutions better than before,” says Rake Narang, editor-in-chief, Network Products Guide. “Innovative products such as the Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 are bringing improvements in email security through virtualization."
“Network Products Guide’s recognition of the Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 further validates our solutions as excellence-in-class and ahead of the curve in email security,” said Leo Jolicoeur, CEO at Abaca Technology Corporation. “Product innovation is key to our continued commitment to meeting our customer needs and providing them with solutions that are ground-breaking.”
About Network Products Guide Awards
Network Products Guide published from Silicon Valley is a leading provider of products, technologies and vendor related research and analysis. You will discover a wealth of information in this guide including product innovations, roadmaps, industry directions, technology advancements and independent product evaluations that facilitate in making the most pertinent technology decisions impacting business and personal goals. The guide follows conscientious research methodologies developed and enhanced by industry experts. To learn more, visit www.networkproductsguide.com.
About Abaca Technology Corporation
Abaca Technology Corporation is an innovator in email protection and messaging security. Abaca’s next generation technology, ReceiverNet™, offers a revolutionary approach in the fight against spam — providing an unprecedented level of performance and guaranteeing a minimum of 99 percent accuracy. Abaca has created a portfolio of advanced products and services based upon this core technology, thereby assuring users unparalleled messaging protection from spam, as well as viruses and phishing attacks. Abaca is a privately held company headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information about Abaca, please visit
Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 is a virtual email security appliance and software solution that delivers unprecedented email protection against spam, viruses, phishing attacks, DoS attacks, directory harvest attacks and spoofing with zero tuning. Combined with Abaca’s ReceiverNet™ Service, the Virtual Email Protection Gateway provides secure, managed access to the Abaca ReceiverNet Protection Network and guarantees a minimum of 99 percent accuracy.
Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway provides all the benefits of the Abaca Email Protection Gateway appliance with the added benefits of virtualization including: maximization of existing hardware investments; standardized hardware for improved manageability, availability, flexibility, and cost savings; and simplified backup and disaster recovery. The Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 supports up to 1,500 licensed email users. To read more about this product innovation, please visit www.networkproductsguide.com/innovations/
“The goal of any product innovation must always remain a positive change, making or improving solutions better than before,” says Rake Narang, editor-in-chief, Network Products Guide. “Innovative products such as the Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 are bringing improvements in email security through virtualization."
“Network Products Guide’s recognition of the Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 further validates our solutions as excellence-in-class and ahead of the curve in email security,” said Leo Jolicoeur, CEO at Abaca Technology Corporation. “Product innovation is key to our continued commitment to meeting our customer needs and providing them with solutions that are ground-breaking.”
About Network Products Guide Awards
Network Products Guide published from Silicon Valley is a leading provider of products, technologies and vendor related research and analysis. You will discover a wealth of information in this guide including product innovations, roadmaps, industry directions, technology advancements and independent product evaluations that facilitate in making the most pertinent technology decisions impacting business and personal goals. The guide follows conscientious research methodologies developed and enhanced by industry experts. To learn more, visit www.networkproductsguide.com.
About Abaca Technology Corporation
Abaca Technology Corporation is an innovator in email protection and messaging security. Abaca’s next generation technology, ReceiverNet™, offers a revolutionary approach in the fight against spam — providing an unprecedented level of performance and guaranteeing a minimum of 99 percent accuracy. Abaca has created a portfolio of advanced products and services based upon this core technology, thereby assuring users unparalleled messaging protection from spam, as well as viruses and phishing attacks. Abaca is a privately held company headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information about Abaca, please visit
Brocade deal to help drive data-center transition
Brocade Communications Systems' planned US$3 billion acquisition of Foundry Networks is a major strategic move in a brewing war over the future of data-center connectivity, industry analysts said Tuesday.
The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, would combine a maker of Fibre Channel SAN (storage area network) switches for data centers and a specialist in enterprise Ethernet LANs, two technologies that are headed toward a merger themselves.
[ Related reading: Brocade to buy Foundry for $3 billion ]
The future of data centers lies with Ethernet, because it's relatively inexpensive, keeps scaling up to higher speeds and is ubiquitous throughout the rest of enterprise networks, analysts say. Virtualization and data-center consolidation are helping to drive the need for Ethernet's growing speeds. The idea is to create a "unified fabric" that spans both the data center at the enterprise's core and the LAN where client systems are located. But there are two main ways to bring Ethernet to data centers with the features needed there.
Both Brocade and Cisco are pushing FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet), an IEEE standard expected later this year that would combine characteristics of both systems. By mapping Fibre Channel traffic over Ethernet networks, it will let enterprises take advantage of Ethernet speeds of 10G bps (bits per second) and up while keeping the latency, security and traffic management benefits of Fibre Channel. FCoE will also smooth the migration to Ethernet by letting the two technologies coexist in a single switch, so existing SANs (storage area networks) can stay.
The alternative is iSCSI, (Internet Small Computer System Interface) which some smaller enterprises have adopted because it can be used with conventional Ethernet switches and without in-house Fibre Channel expertise, said Bob Laliberte of Enterprise Strategy Group. Its main proponents have been storage vendors, he said.
Although it will take years for current Fibre Channel SANs to be replaced, one of the two is likely to win out, analysts said.
"There's a major religious war between FCoE and iSCSI," said Burton Group analyst Dave Passmore. They represent completely different technical approaches to combining Ethernet and storage transport protocols. "Reasonable people will disagree," he said.
Like Fibre Channel, FCoE does not use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), the basic communication protocol of the Internet and Ethernet networks, instead making up for it with other tools. Of the two approaches, only FCoE requires expensive, specialized switches, Passmore said, but it's more attractive to many organizations because it allows for a smoother transition from existing architectures, he said.
Enterprises could eventually lose out by choosing the technology that loses, but FCoE and iSCSI will probably coexist for years, Passmore said.
A unified fabric could save users money as well as complexity, Passmore said. For example, instead of having one network connection to the LAN and another to the SAN that it taps into for data, a blade server could have just one set of connections.
"That would greatly simplify the user's network infrastructure and require fewer switches," Passmore said.
Security is the main potential concern about having a common type of network across data centers and LANs, he said. Having two completely different networks as is traditionally done has built-in security benefits. But costs and benefits always have to be balanced in adopting new technologies, he said.
Brocade's purchase of Foundry will create a second powerful vendor of FCoE, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. So far, Cisco has been the only company with both the vision and the technology to create a unified fabric, he said. Brocade had the vision and now is gaining the Ethernet goods, Kerravala said.
"If the concept of unified fabric really does come true, there are really only two vendors," Kerravala said.
The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, would combine a maker of Fibre Channel SAN (storage area network) switches for data centers and a specialist in enterprise Ethernet LANs, two technologies that are headed toward a merger themselves.
[ Related reading: Brocade to buy Foundry for $3 billion ]
The future of data centers lies with Ethernet, because it's relatively inexpensive, keeps scaling up to higher speeds and is ubiquitous throughout the rest of enterprise networks, analysts say. Virtualization and data-center consolidation are helping to drive the need for Ethernet's growing speeds. The idea is to create a "unified fabric" that spans both the data center at the enterprise's core and the LAN where client systems are located. But there are two main ways to bring Ethernet to data centers with the features needed there.
Both Brocade and Cisco are pushing FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet), an IEEE standard expected later this year that would combine characteristics of both systems. By mapping Fibre Channel traffic over Ethernet networks, it will let enterprises take advantage of Ethernet speeds of 10G bps (bits per second) and up while keeping the latency, security and traffic management benefits of Fibre Channel. FCoE will also smooth the migration to Ethernet by letting the two technologies coexist in a single switch, so existing SANs (storage area networks) can stay.
The alternative is iSCSI, (Internet Small Computer System Interface) which some smaller enterprises have adopted because it can be used with conventional Ethernet switches and without in-house Fibre Channel expertise, said Bob Laliberte of Enterprise Strategy Group. Its main proponents have been storage vendors, he said.
Although it will take years for current Fibre Channel SANs to be replaced, one of the two is likely to win out, analysts said.
"There's a major religious war between FCoE and iSCSI," said Burton Group analyst Dave Passmore. They represent completely different technical approaches to combining Ethernet and storage transport protocols. "Reasonable people will disagree," he said.
Like Fibre Channel, FCoE does not use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), the basic communication protocol of the Internet and Ethernet networks, instead making up for it with other tools. Of the two approaches, only FCoE requires expensive, specialized switches, Passmore said, but it's more attractive to many organizations because it allows for a smoother transition from existing architectures, he said.
Enterprises could eventually lose out by choosing the technology that loses, but FCoE and iSCSI will probably coexist for years, Passmore said.
A unified fabric could save users money as well as complexity, Passmore said. For example, instead of having one network connection to the LAN and another to the SAN that it taps into for data, a blade server could have just one set of connections.
"That would greatly simplify the user's network infrastructure and require fewer switches," Passmore said.
Security is the main potential concern about having a common type of network across data centers and LANs, he said. Having two completely different networks as is traditionally done has built-in security benefits. But costs and benefits always have to be balanced in adopting new technologies, he said.
Brocade's purchase of Foundry will create a second powerful vendor of FCoE, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. So far, Cisco has been the only company with both the vision and the technology to create a unified fabric, he said. Brocade had the vision and now is gaining the Ethernet goods, Kerravala said.
"If the concept of unified fabric really does come true, there are really only two vendors," Kerravala said.
San Francisco's mayor gets back keys to the network
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom met with jailed IT administrator Terry Childs Monday, convincing him to hand over the administrative passwords to the city's multimillion dollar wide area network.
Childs made headlines last week when he was arrested and charged with four counts of computer tampering, after he refused to give over passwords to the Cisco Systems switches and routers used on the city's FiberWAN network, which carries about 60 percent of the municipal government's network traffic. Childs, who managed the network before his arrest, has been locked up in the county jail since July 13.
[ Related reading: IT admin locks up San Francisco's network ]
On Monday afternoon, he handed the passwords over to Mayor Newsom, who was "the only person he felt he could trust," according to a declaration filed in court by his attorney, Erin Crane. Newsom is ultimately responsible for the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) where Childs worked for the past five years
Mayor Newsom secured the passwords without first telling DTIS about his meeting with Childs, according to DTIS chief administrative officer Ron Vinson, who added, "We're very happy the mayor embarked on his clandestine mission."
[Related reading: IT administrator pleads not guilty to network tampering ]
The department now has full administrative control of the network, he said in an interview Tuesday night.
It's likely that Childs had a lot to tell the mayor when the two met.
Childs' attorney has asked the judge to reduce Childs US$5 million bail bond, describing her client as a man who felt himself surrounded by incompetents and supervised by a manager who he felt was undermining his work.
"None of the persons who requested the password information from Mr. Childs ... were qualified to have it," she said in a court filing.
Childs intends to disprove the charges against him but also "expose the utter mismanagement, negligence and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger," his motion reads.
Vinson dismissed the allegations. "In Terry Childs' mind, obviously he thinks the network is his, but it's not. It's the taxpayers'," he said. "The reason he's been sitting in jail is because he denied the department and others access to the system."
The court filings help explain just how this happened.
According to an affidavit from James Ramsey, an inspector with the San Francisco Police Department, he and other investigators discovered dial-up and DSL (digital subscriber line) modems that would allow an unauthorized connection to the FiberWAN. He also found that Childs had configured several of the Cisco devices with a command that would erase critical configuration data in the event that anyone tried to restore administrative access to the devices, something Ramsey saw as dangerous because no backup configuration files could be found.
This command, called a No Service Password Recovery is often used by engineers to add an extra level of security to networks, said Mike Chase, regional director of engineering with FusionStorm, an IT services provider that supports Cisco products.
But without access to either Childs' passwords or the backup configuration files, administrators would have to essentially re-configure their entire network, an error-prone and time consuming possibility, Chase said. "It's basically like playing 3D chess," he said. "In that situation, you're stuck interviewing everybody at every site getting anecdotal stories of who's connected to what. And then you're guaranteed to miss something."
Without the passwords, the network would still continue to run, but it would be impossible to reconfigure the equipment. The only way to restore these devices to a manageable state would be to knock them offline and then reconfigure them, something that would take weeks or months to complete, disrupt service and cost the city "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars," Ramsey claims.
Crane argues that these monitoring devices were installed with management's permission and were critical to the smooth functioning of the network. They would page Childs when the system went down and allow him to remotely access the network from his personal computer in case of an emergency.
In interviews, current and former DTIS staffers describe Childs as a well respected co-worker who may have gone too far under the pressure of working in a department that had been demoralized and drastically cut as the city moved forward with plans to decentralize IT operations.
About 200 of the department's 350 IT positions had been cut since 2000, mostly to be relocated to other divisions within city government, said Richard Isen, IT chapter president with Childs' union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21.
Despite his conflict with some in the department, Childs has a lot of support there, Isen said. "There is a lot of sympathy, only because there is a basic feeling that management misunderstand what we actually do and doesn't appreciate the complexity of the work."
(Paul Venezia is Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld)
Childs made headlines last week when he was arrested and charged with four counts of computer tampering, after he refused to give over passwords to the Cisco Systems switches and routers used on the city's FiberWAN network, which carries about 60 percent of the municipal government's network traffic. Childs, who managed the network before his arrest, has been locked up in the county jail since July 13.
[ Related reading: IT admin locks up San Francisco's network ]
On Monday afternoon, he handed the passwords over to Mayor Newsom, who was "the only person he felt he could trust," according to a declaration filed in court by his attorney, Erin Crane. Newsom is ultimately responsible for the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) where Childs worked for the past five years
Mayor Newsom secured the passwords without first telling DTIS about his meeting with Childs, according to DTIS chief administrative officer Ron Vinson, who added, "We're very happy the mayor embarked on his clandestine mission."
[Related reading: IT administrator pleads not guilty to network tampering ]
The department now has full administrative control of the network, he said in an interview Tuesday night.
It's likely that Childs had a lot to tell the mayor when the two met.
Childs' attorney has asked the judge to reduce Childs US$5 million bail bond, describing her client as a man who felt himself surrounded by incompetents and supervised by a manager who he felt was undermining his work.
"None of the persons who requested the password information from Mr. Childs ... were qualified to have it," she said in a court filing.
Childs intends to disprove the charges against him but also "expose the utter mismanagement, negligence and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger," his motion reads.
Vinson dismissed the allegations. "In Terry Childs' mind, obviously he thinks the network is his, but it's not. It's the taxpayers'," he said. "The reason he's been sitting in jail is because he denied the department and others access to the system."
The court filings help explain just how this happened.
According to an affidavit from James Ramsey, an inspector with the San Francisco Police Department, he and other investigators discovered dial-up and DSL (digital subscriber line) modems that would allow an unauthorized connection to the FiberWAN. He also found that Childs had configured several of the Cisco devices with a command that would erase critical configuration data in the event that anyone tried to restore administrative access to the devices, something Ramsey saw as dangerous because no backup configuration files could be found.
This command, called a No Service Password Recovery is often used by engineers to add an extra level of security to networks, said Mike Chase, regional director of engineering with FusionStorm, an IT services provider that supports Cisco products.
But without access to either Childs' passwords or the backup configuration files, administrators would have to essentially re-configure their entire network, an error-prone and time consuming possibility, Chase said. "It's basically like playing 3D chess," he said. "In that situation, you're stuck interviewing everybody at every site getting anecdotal stories of who's connected to what. And then you're guaranteed to miss something."
Without the passwords, the network would still continue to run, but it would be impossible to reconfigure the equipment. The only way to restore these devices to a manageable state would be to knock them offline and then reconfigure them, something that would take weeks or months to complete, disrupt service and cost the city "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars," Ramsey claims.
Crane argues that these monitoring devices were installed with management's permission and were critical to the smooth functioning of the network. They would page Childs when the system went down and allow him to remotely access the network from his personal computer in case of an emergency.
In interviews, current and former DTIS staffers describe Childs as a well respected co-worker who may have gone too far under the pressure of working in a department that had been demoralized and drastically cut as the city moved forward with plans to decentralize IT operations.
About 200 of the department's 350 IT positions had been cut since 2000, mostly to be relocated to other divisions within city government, said Richard Isen, IT chapter president with Childs' union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21.
Despite his conflict with some in the department, Childs has a lot of support there, Isen said. "There is a lot of sympathy, only because there is a basic feeling that management misunderstand what we actually do and doesn't appreciate the complexity of the work."
(Paul Venezia is Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld)
Sun moves to indirect sales for most US customers
Sun Microsystems is moving to an indirect sales model in the U.S. for all but about 300 of its largest customers, a step designed to help boost its flagging revenue.
The change means customers who aren't among Sun's biggest U.S. accounts from a revenue perspective will be switched to one of its reseller partners in the coming months, said Tom Wagner, vice president of Sun's North America partner sales organization, in an interview on Tuesday.
"Effectively we're going to go 100 percent 'channel' below the top 300 or so accounts," he said. That means Sun will depend wholly on its partners to generate leads, architect systems, close deals and provide much of the support and services for those customers.
The move will likely be welcomed by Sun's 600 or so channel partners in the U.S. because they will no longer be competing with Sun for business. Sun believes it will give them more motivation to attack areas of the market where Sun's "share of the wallet" is low today, and allow Sun to scale its sales efforts to target those accounts, Wagner said.
It is less clear how the move will be received by customers. "At the end of the day it'll be a 'wait and see' in terms of the customer reaction," Wagner said.
"We have a portfolio of partners who play pretty high up in the value stack and who we believe can provide quality technical support and system engineering resources," he said. But he acknowledged that some customers may have "very specific demands about how we handle their accounts."
"We'll have to deal with that when it comes to it," he said.
The so-called Partner First initiative is limited to the U.S. today and Sun didn't announce any plans to extend it overseas. Companies will sometimes try a new strategy in one region and roll it out worldwide if it's successful.
Sun does about two-thirds of its business through channel partners today and the proportion outside the top 300 accounts is roughly the same, Wagner said. "We're turning over what we believe is a fairly significant amount of our existing business" to the channel, he said.
The plan was announced internally on July 11 and relayed to Sun's partners through a conference call last week, Wagner said. The goal is to complete the transition by the end of this quarter or early next, which means by September or October.
The change comes at a time when Sun is struggling to grow its business as fast as competitors. Last week it announced that revenue for the June quarter will probably be lower than what it reported a year ago, although the preliminary figures were roughly in line with analyst estimates. It will report its full results on Aug. 1.
Sun is also restructuring and announced in May that it would lay off 7 percent of its workforce, or about 2,500 staff. Wagner said he couldn't comment on whether the new sales plan is related to the layoffs, but one industry analyst said that's likely to be the case.
"This will help to streamline their operations. It will result in lower headcount," said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group, in Beaverton, Oregon.
Sun may also end up handing over a larger proportion of its professional services revenue to the channel, Olds said.
"The challenge will be ensuring that they get the shelf space with these partners, and that they invest enough to make sure they're well represented in the field," he said.
Sun will make "targeted investments" in partners or recruit new ones as necessary, Wagner said. The company is also changing the way it supports its partners. In the past, managers were allocated to a particular region and had little incentive to help partners grow their businesses in other parts of the country. It is changing so that Sun's managers now have an incentive to help the partners they manage nationwide.
Wagner wouldn't be pinned down on which areas Sun hopes to get more business from. The company is strongest today in the telecommunications, financial and federal government sectors, and is pursuing a bigger share of the healthcare and education markets, as well as that for mid-market customers.
"We believe we have a value proposition for just about anyone out there," Wagner said
.
The change means customers who aren't among Sun's biggest U.S. accounts from a revenue perspective will be switched to one of its reseller partners in the coming months, said Tom Wagner, vice president of Sun's North America partner sales organization, in an interview on Tuesday.
"Effectively we're going to go 100 percent 'channel' below the top 300 or so accounts," he said. That means Sun will depend wholly on its partners to generate leads, architect systems, close deals and provide much of the support and services for those customers.
The move will likely be welcomed by Sun's 600 or so channel partners in the U.S. because they will no longer be competing with Sun for business. Sun believes it will give them more motivation to attack areas of the market where Sun's "share of the wallet" is low today, and allow Sun to scale its sales efforts to target those accounts, Wagner said.
It is less clear how the move will be received by customers. "At the end of the day it'll be a 'wait and see' in terms of the customer reaction," Wagner said.
"We have a portfolio of partners who play pretty high up in the value stack and who we believe can provide quality technical support and system engineering resources," he said. But he acknowledged that some customers may have "very specific demands about how we handle their accounts."
"We'll have to deal with that when it comes to it," he said.
The so-called Partner First initiative is limited to the U.S. today and Sun didn't announce any plans to extend it overseas. Companies will sometimes try a new strategy in one region and roll it out worldwide if it's successful.
Sun does about two-thirds of its business through channel partners today and the proportion outside the top 300 accounts is roughly the same, Wagner said. "We're turning over what we believe is a fairly significant amount of our existing business" to the channel, he said.
The plan was announced internally on July 11 and relayed to Sun's partners through a conference call last week, Wagner said. The goal is to complete the transition by the end of this quarter or early next, which means by September or October.
The change comes at a time when Sun is struggling to grow its business as fast as competitors. Last week it announced that revenue for the June quarter will probably be lower than what it reported a year ago, although the preliminary figures were roughly in line with analyst estimates. It will report its full results on Aug. 1.
Sun is also restructuring and announced in May that it would lay off 7 percent of its workforce, or about 2,500 staff. Wagner said he couldn't comment on whether the new sales plan is related to the layoffs, but one industry analyst said that's likely to be the case.
"This will help to streamline their operations. It will result in lower headcount," said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group, in Beaverton, Oregon.
Sun may also end up handing over a larger proportion of its professional services revenue to the channel, Olds said.
"The challenge will be ensuring that they get the shelf space with these partners, and that they invest enough to make sure they're well represented in the field," he said.
Sun will make "targeted investments" in partners or recruit new ones as necessary, Wagner said. The company is also changing the way it supports its partners. In the past, managers were allocated to a particular region and had little incentive to help partners grow their businesses in other parts of the country. It is changing so that Sun's managers now have an incentive to help the partners they manage nationwide.
Wagner wouldn't be pinned down on which areas Sun hopes to get more business from. The company is strongest today in the telecommunications, financial and federal government sectors, and is pursuing a bigger share of the healthcare and education markets, as well as that for mid-market customers.
"We believe we have a value proposition for just about anyone out there," Wagner said
.
NAND flash memory downturn to continue
A global glut of NAND flash memory chips, which store songs, photos and other data in gadgets from iPods to digital cameras, will continue for at least the next few months because companies have been slow to rein in production, according to DRAMeXchange Technology.
The market researcher, which is based in the heartland of the global memory spot market in Taipei, predicts the NAND flash supply will grow 149 percent this year despite worsening prices for the chips. The problem is that chip makers such as Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor and SanDisk's partner, Toshiba, have not moved fast enough to cut production.
The good news for users is that companies will be able to offer more NAND flash storage capacity for a lower price, or offer better deals on existing products such as flash memory cards and MP3 players. Low NAND flash prices could also spur companies to lower prices on hot products such as SSDs (solid state drives) in hopes of growing the market for the drives.
Prices of NAND flash memory dropped 20 percent on average in the month of June, DRAMeXchange said, and an upturn for the market may not be in the offing until as late as September.
The NAND flash market has been so bad that the creator of the chips, SanDisk, on Monday reported a surprise loss of US$68 million for the second quarter. The company blamed the supply glut for its problems, pointing out that it sold a record amount of flash, 120 percent more than the same time last year, but that prices are down 55 percent compared to then.
SanDisk also said NAND flash prices may worsen in the third quarter. The company's Nasdaq-listed stock fell US$4.31, or 24 percent, to end Tuesday at $13.62 as a result of its earnings news.
To counter the deteriorating market, SanDisk will delay the start of production at a new joint venture chip factory until April 2009 and put plans for another factory on hold until market conditions improve.
Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer notes that SanDisk's plans to delay building new production lines are a positive for the NAND flash industry and rivals are likely to follow. SanDisk and partner Toshiba account for around a third of the global NAND flash supply, he said in a report.
The market researcher, which is based in the heartland of the global memory spot market in Taipei, predicts the NAND flash supply will grow 149 percent this year despite worsening prices for the chips. The problem is that chip makers such as Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor and SanDisk's partner, Toshiba, have not moved fast enough to cut production.
The good news for users is that companies will be able to offer more NAND flash storage capacity for a lower price, or offer better deals on existing products such as flash memory cards and MP3 players. Low NAND flash prices could also spur companies to lower prices on hot products such as SSDs (solid state drives) in hopes of growing the market for the drives.
Prices of NAND flash memory dropped 20 percent on average in the month of June, DRAMeXchange said, and an upturn for the market may not be in the offing until as late as September.
The NAND flash market has been so bad that the creator of the chips, SanDisk, on Monday reported a surprise loss of US$68 million for the second quarter. The company blamed the supply glut for its problems, pointing out that it sold a record amount of flash, 120 percent more than the same time last year, but that prices are down 55 percent compared to then.
SanDisk also said NAND flash prices may worsen in the third quarter. The company's Nasdaq-listed stock fell US$4.31, or 24 percent, to end Tuesday at $13.62 as a result of its earnings news.
To counter the deteriorating market, SanDisk will delay the start of production at a new joint venture chip factory until April 2009 and put plans for another factory on hold until market conditions improve.
Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer notes that SanDisk's plans to delay building new production lines are a positive for the NAND flash industry and rivals are likely to follow. SanDisk and partner Toshiba account for around a third of the global NAND flash supply, he said in a report.
McAfee: SMBs underestimate cybercrime risks
The latest survey from security vendor McAfee has found that small to medium-size businesses in North America and Europe wrongly conclude their revenue is too low to draw the attention of cybercriminals.
SMBs are in fact rich hunting ground for hackers, McAfee said. Although there may be less money or data to steal, the attacks are also less likely to gain the attention of law enforcement organizations such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Lots of small attacks add up to large amounts of revenue," according to the survey, which polled 500 companies in the U.S. and Canada. There are an estimated 7.4 million SMBs in North America.
McAfee's study this year focused on North America, whereas last year it surveyed 600 European SMBs. However, the conclusions of the two studies are similar.
About 45 percent of North American businesses felt they did not have valuable data to steal. Last year, 58 percent of European businesses gave the same response.
In the U.S., 39 percent of businesses with up to 1,000 employees reported spending an hour or less a week on IT security. The figure is higher for Canadian businesses: 44 percent.
Part of the problem is that attention to security takes time, and SMBs have fewer resources. Many don't have an employee dedicated full-time to IT security. But McAfee argues that SMBs could face critical shutdowns in business as a result of weak security.
Every business retains employee data, which could be valuable, the survey said. Also, every business is hit with spam, which often is laden with malicious data-stealing programs.
McAfee said it expects hackers to increasingly go after VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems, virtual systems as well as mobile devices. McAfee's advice: patch regularly, filter e-mail and use antivirus software.
SMBs are in fact rich hunting ground for hackers, McAfee said. Although there may be less money or data to steal, the attacks are also less likely to gain the attention of law enforcement organizations such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Lots of small attacks add up to large amounts of revenue," according to the survey, which polled 500 companies in the U.S. and Canada. There are an estimated 7.4 million SMBs in North America.
McAfee's study this year focused on North America, whereas last year it surveyed 600 European SMBs. However, the conclusions of the two studies are similar.
About 45 percent of North American businesses felt they did not have valuable data to steal. Last year, 58 percent of European businesses gave the same response.
In the U.S., 39 percent of businesses with up to 1,000 employees reported spending an hour or less a week on IT security. The figure is higher for Canadian businesses: 44 percent.
Part of the problem is that attention to security takes time, and SMBs have fewer resources. Many don't have an employee dedicated full-time to IT security. But McAfee argues that SMBs could face critical shutdowns in business as a result of weak security.
Every business retains employee data, which could be valuable, the survey said. Also, every business is hit with spam, which often is laden with malicious data-stealing programs.
McAfee said it expects hackers to increasingly go after VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems, virtual systems as well as mobile devices. McAfee's advice: patch regularly, filter e-mail and use antivirus software.
With DNS flaw now public, attack code imminent
One day after a security company accidentally posted details of a serious flaw in the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), hackers are saying that software that exploits this flaw is sure to pop up soon.
Several hackers are almost certainly already developing attack code for the bug, and it will most likely crop up within the next few days, said Dave Aitel, chief technology officer at security vendor Immunity. His company will eventually develop sample code for its Canvas security testing software too, a task he expects to take about a day, given the simplicity of the attack. "It's not that hard," he said. "You're not looking at a DNA-cracking effort."
[ Related reading: Details of major Internet flaw posted by accident ]
The author of one widely used hacking tool said he expected to have an exploit by the end of the day Tuesday. In a telephone interview, HD Moore, author of the Metasploit penetration testing software, agreed with Aitel that the attack code was not going to be difficult to write.
The flaw, a variation on what's known as a cache poisoning attack, was announced on July 8 by IOActive researcher Dan Kaminsky, who planned to disclose full details of the bug during an Aug. 6 presentation at the Black Hat conference.
That plan was thwarted Monday, when someone at Matasano accidentally posted details of the flaw ahead of schedule. Matasano quickly removed the post and apologized for its mistake, but it was too late. Details of the flaw soon spread around the Internet.
And that's bad news, according to Paul Vixie, president of the company that is the dominant maker of DNS software, the Internet Systems Consortium. Vixie, like others who were briefed on Kaminsky's bug, did not confirm that it had been disclosed by Matasano. But if it had, "it's a big deal," he said in an e-mail message.
The attack can be used to redirect victims to malicious servers on the Internet by targeting the DNS servers that serve as signposts for all of the Internet's traffic. By tricking an Internet service provider's (ISPs) servers into accepting bad information, attackers could redirect that company's customers to malicious Web sites without their knowledge.
Although a software fix is now available for most users of DNS software, it can take time for these updates to work their way through the testing process and actually get installed on the network.
"Most people have not patched yet," Vixie said. "That's a gigantic problem for the world."
Just how big of a problem is a matter of some debate.
Neal Krawetz, owner of computer security consultancy Hacker Factor Solutions, took a look at DNS servers run by major ISPs earlier this week and found that more than half of them were still vulnerable to the attack.
"I find it dumbfounding that the largest ISPs ... are still identified as vulnerable," he wrote in a blog posting. "When the [hackers] learn of the exploit, they will go playing. They are certain to start with the lowest hanging fruit -- large companies that are vulnerable and support a huge number of users."
He expects that users will see attacks within weeks, starting first with test attacks, and possibly even a widespread domain hijacking. "Finally will be the phishers, malware writers and organized attackers," he wrote in a Tuesday e-mail interview. "I really expect these to be very focused attacks."
Most ISPs will have probably applied the patch by the time any attacks start to surface, and that will protect the vast majority of home users, said Russ Cooper, a senior information security analyst with Verizon Business. And business users who use secure DNS-proxying software will also be "pretty much protected" from the attack at their firewall, Cooper said.
"If anyone actually tries to exploit this, the actual number of victims will end up being extremely small," he predicted.
HD Moore said he didn't exactly see things that way. Because the flaw affects nearly all of the DNS software being used on the Internet, he said that there could be lots of problems ahead.
"This is a bug we'll be worrying about a year from now," he said.
Several hackers are almost certainly already developing attack code for the bug, and it will most likely crop up within the next few days, said Dave Aitel, chief technology officer at security vendor Immunity. His company will eventually develop sample code for its Canvas security testing software too, a task he expects to take about a day, given the simplicity of the attack. "It's not that hard," he said. "You're not looking at a DNA-cracking effort."
[ Related reading: Details of major Internet flaw posted by accident ]
The author of one widely used hacking tool said he expected to have an exploit by the end of the day Tuesday. In a telephone interview, HD Moore, author of the Metasploit penetration testing software, agreed with Aitel that the attack code was not going to be difficult to write.
The flaw, a variation on what's known as a cache poisoning attack, was announced on July 8 by IOActive researcher Dan Kaminsky, who planned to disclose full details of the bug during an Aug. 6 presentation at the Black Hat conference.
That plan was thwarted Monday, when someone at Matasano accidentally posted details of the flaw ahead of schedule. Matasano quickly removed the post and apologized for its mistake, but it was too late. Details of the flaw soon spread around the Internet.
And that's bad news, according to Paul Vixie, president of the company that is the dominant maker of DNS software, the Internet Systems Consortium. Vixie, like others who were briefed on Kaminsky's bug, did not confirm that it had been disclosed by Matasano. But if it had, "it's a big deal," he said in an e-mail message.
The attack can be used to redirect victims to malicious servers on the Internet by targeting the DNS servers that serve as signposts for all of the Internet's traffic. By tricking an Internet service provider's (ISPs) servers into accepting bad information, attackers could redirect that company's customers to malicious Web sites without their knowledge.
Although a software fix is now available for most users of DNS software, it can take time for these updates to work their way through the testing process and actually get installed on the network.
"Most people have not patched yet," Vixie said. "That's a gigantic problem for the world."
Just how big of a problem is a matter of some debate.
Neal Krawetz, owner of computer security consultancy Hacker Factor Solutions, took a look at DNS servers run by major ISPs earlier this week and found that more than half of them were still vulnerable to the attack.
"I find it dumbfounding that the largest ISPs ... are still identified as vulnerable," he wrote in a blog posting. "When the [hackers] learn of the exploit, they will go playing. They are certain to start with the lowest hanging fruit -- large companies that are vulnerable and support a huge number of users."
He expects that users will see attacks within weeks, starting first with test attacks, and possibly even a widespread domain hijacking. "Finally will be the phishers, malware writers and organized attackers," he wrote in a Tuesday e-mail interview. "I really expect these to be very focused attacks."
Most ISPs will have probably applied the patch by the time any attacks start to surface, and that will protect the vast majority of home users, said Russ Cooper, a senior information security analyst with Verizon Business. And business users who use secure DNS-proxying software will also be "pretty much protected" from the attack at their firewall, Cooper said.
"If anyone actually tries to exploit this, the actual number of victims will end up being extremely small," he predicted.
HD Moore said he didn't exactly see things that way. Because the flaw affects nearly all of the DNS software being used on the Internet, he said that there could be lots of problems ahead.
"This is a bug we'll be worrying about a year from now," he said.
Coverity™ Introduces New Static Analysis Solution for C#
Coverity™, Inc., the leader in improving software quality and security, announced Coverity Prevent™ for C#. The product utilizes a new analysis engine developed by Coverity’s research and development lab that is designed specifically for detecting defects in applications built on Microsoft’s .NET framework. Prevent for C# expands the language coverage of Coverity’s static analysis products, and brings the company’s proven expertise in automatic defect detection to developers programming in C#. Over 450 development organizations currently use Coverity Prevent to ensure the quality and security of their C/C++ and Java code.
“To remain competitive, software development team leads need to stock their developer’s tool-box with advanced technology to maintain or improve productivity that helps them deliver higher quality code to everyone upstream,” said Theresa Lanowitz, founder of voke, a technology analyst firm. “As a language, C# is playing an increasing role in failure-intolerant devices, particularly in the embedded space. Coverity's expertise in static analysis will be a welcome addition to the tool-box of any C# developer.”
Unlike other static tools that simply extend existing analysis capabilities to encompass a new language, Prevent for C# is based on an entirely new analysis engine designed and optimized for Microsoft .NET-based applications. It seamlessly handles features of the C# language such as operator overloading, properties, and idioms for iteration and resource management. Prevent for C# also automatically finds third party .NET assemblies to ensure a complete analysis result, no matter how complex the application.
Coverity Prevent for C# automatically analyzes large, complex C# code bases and detects critical, must-fix defects that could lead to system failures, memory corruption or performance degradation. Because the product is the only C# static analysis tool to deliver 100% path coverage, it delivers the most comprehensive and accurate C# source code analysis. Prevent for C# requires no changes to existing build processes or code, and easily integrates into existing build processes and requires little or no additional hardware. Key capabilities of Prevent for C# include: Detect Critical Defects - Automatic detection of defects in C# source code that can cause crashes, performance degradation and incorrect program behavior
* 100% Path Coverage - Analysis of every path in C# code bases, ensuring that all possible execution branches are followed
* Low False Positive Rate - Accurate, actionable results help developers immediately begin improving the quality and security of their code
* Flexible Workflow - Defect Manager product interface allows teams to collaboratively view analysis results, triage defects, assign ownership, and provides comprehensive workflow capabilities
* Highly Scalable - Millions of lines of code can be analyzed in a matter of hours
“Coverity developed Prevent for C# in response to requests from our existing customer base and the growing use of the .NET application framework in mission-critical systems where software defects can be tremendously costly,” said Andy Chou, chief scientist and co-founder at Coverity. “Delivering new technology so that our static analysis product line covers C, C++, C# and Java is a significant milestone on our roadmap for our flagship static analysis solution.”
About Coverity
Coverity (http://www.coverity.com), the leader in improving software quality and security, is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco. Coverity’s groundbreaking technology enables developers to control complexity in the development process by automatically finding and helping to repair critical software defects and security vulnerabilities throughout the application lifecycle. More than 450 leading companies including ARM, Phillips, RIM, Rockwell-Collins, Samsung and UBS rely on Coverity to help them ensure the delivery of superior software.
“To remain competitive, software development team leads need to stock their developer’s tool-box with advanced technology to maintain or improve productivity that helps them deliver higher quality code to everyone upstream,” said Theresa Lanowitz, founder of voke, a technology analyst firm. “As a language, C# is playing an increasing role in failure-intolerant devices, particularly in the embedded space. Coverity's expertise in static analysis will be a welcome addition to the tool-box of any C# developer.”
Unlike other static tools that simply extend existing analysis capabilities to encompass a new language, Prevent for C# is based on an entirely new analysis engine designed and optimized for Microsoft .NET-based applications. It seamlessly handles features of the C# language such as operator overloading, properties, and idioms for iteration and resource management. Prevent for C# also automatically finds third party .NET assemblies to ensure a complete analysis result, no matter how complex the application.
Coverity Prevent for C# automatically analyzes large, complex C# code bases and detects critical, must-fix defects that could lead to system failures, memory corruption or performance degradation. Because the product is the only C# static analysis tool to deliver 100% path coverage, it delivers the most comprehensive and accurate C# source code analysis. Prevent for C# requires no changes to existing build processes or code, and easily integrates into existing build processes and requires little or no additional hardware. Key capabilities of Prevent for C# include: Detect Critical Defects - Automatic detection of defects in C# source code that can cause crashes, performance degradation and incorrect program behavior
* 100% Path Coverage - Analysis of every path in C# code bases, ensuring that all possible execution branches are followed
* Low False Positive Rate - Accurate, actionable results help developers immediately begin improving the quality and security of their code
* Flexible Workflow - Defect Manager product interface allows teams to collaboratively view analysis results, triage defects, assign ownership, and provides comprehensive workflow capabilities
* Highly Scalable - Millions of lines of code can be analyzed in a matter of hours
“Coverity developed Prevent for C# in response to requests from our existing customer base and the growing use of the .NET application framework in mission-critical systems where software defects can be tremendously costly,” said Andy Chou, chief scientist and co-founder at Coverity. “Delivering new technology so that our static analysis product line covers C, C++, C# and Java is a significant milestone on our roadmap for our flagship static analysis solution.”
About Coverity
Coverity (http://www.coverity.com), the leader in improving software quality and security, is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco. Coverity’s groundbreaking technology enables developers to control complexity in the development process by automatically finding and helping to repair critical software defects and security vulnerabilities throughout the application lifecycle. More than 450 leading companies including ARM, Phillips, RIM, Rockwell-Collins, Samsung and UBS rely on Coverity to help them ensure the delivery of superior software.
ISP responds to lawmaker concerns about ad tracking
Embarq, an Internet service provider based in Kansas, has suspended its test of a targeted advertising service that tracks subscribers' Web habits as a way to deliver relevant ads.
Embarq, in a letter to U.S. lawmakers made public Tuesday, said it has no plans to deploy a controversial behavioral ad service from NebuAd. Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Embarq CEO Tom Gerke last week, questioning the ISP's use of the NebuAd service, which has prompted an outcry from privacy advocates.
"Embarq has no plans for more tests or for general deployment of this technology, until such time as the privacy questions that have been raised recently have been addressed," said the Embarq letter, signed by David Zesiger, the company's senior vice president for regulatory policy and external affairs.
NebuAd's targeted ad system tracks user behavior in order to deliver more relevant ads and allows ISPs to profit from online advertising, but some privacy groups have accused the company of illegally wiretapping ISP subscribers' connections and of using common Internet attacks to deliver its service.
NebuAd's service first raised concerns earlier this year, when another ISP, Charter Communications, announced it was testing the service. Charter later announced it had suspended the test due to privacy concerns.
The lawmakers' letter came from Representatives John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet; and Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the full committee. The lawmakers raised concerns that the targeted ad service violated privacy and that Embarq had not notified its customers of the NebuAd test.
But Zesiger's letter says that Embarq, which provides voice and Internet service to customers in 18 states, did notify its subscribers of the test. Two weeks before the test began, Embarq posted a notice on its Web site saying it would use personal information to deliver targeted advertising. The notice included a link to a page where subscribers could opt out of this "preference" advertising.
"By opting out, you will continue to receive advertisements as normal, but these advertisements will be less relevant and less useful to you," the notice said.
The Embarq test was brief and did not collect information that could be linked to individual subscribers, Zesiger added. "Embarq put in place a number of clear protections around its test," he wrote.
The test complied with U.S. Federal Trade Commission guidelines on the collection of personal data, Zesiger added. "It appears that industry standards in this area are evolving rapidly toward a more robust form of notice and choice," he said. "Embarq ... not only welcomes, but fully intends to apply any such evolved standards."
Embarq, in a letter to U.S. lawmakers made public Tuesday, said it has no plans to deploy a controversial behavioral ad service from NebuAd. Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Embarq CEO Tom Gerke last week, questioning the ISP's use of the NebuAd service, which has prompted an outcry from privacy advocates.
"Embarq has no plans for more tests or for general deployment of this technology, until such time as the privacy questions that have been raised recently have been addressed," said the Embarq letter, signed by David Zesiger, the company's senior vice president for regulatory policy and external affairs.
NebuAd's targeted ad system tracks user behavior in order to deliver more relevant ads and allows ISPs to profit from online advertising, but some privacy groups have accused the company of illegally wiretapping ISP subscribers' connections and of using common Internet attacks to deliver its service.
NebuAd's service first raised concerns earlier this year, when another ISP, Charter Communications, announced it was testing the service. Charter later announced it had suspended the test due to privacy concerns.
The lawmakers' letter came from Representatives John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet; and Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the full committee. The lawmakers raised concerns that the targeted ad service violated privacy and that Embarq had not notified its customers of the NebuAd test.
But Zesiger's letter says that Embarq, which provides voice and Internet service to customers in 18 states, did notify its subscribers of the test. Two weeks before the test began, Embarq posted a notice on its Web site saying it would use personal information to deliver targeted advertising. The notice included a link to a page where subscribers could opt out of this "preference" advertising.
"By opting out, you will continue to receive advertisements as normal, but these advertisements will be less relevant and less useful to you," the notice said.
The Embarq test was brief and did not collect information that could be linked to individual subscribers, Zesiger added. "Embarq put in place a number of clear protections around its test," he wrote.
The test complied with U.S. Federal Trade Commission guidelines on the collection of personal data, Zesiger added. "It appears that industry standards in this area are evolving rapidly toward a more robust form of notice and choice," he said. "Embarq ... not only welcomes, but fully intends to apply any such evolved standards."
Yahoo's profit down in Q2
Yahoo reported a modest revenue increase and a considerable drop in profit for its second quarter, along the way missing Wall Street's expectations in both categories, results that are unlikely to please its nervous shareholders.
Although Yahoo managed to defuse Carl Icahn's proxy fight this week, a rare victory in its monthslong, tumultuous sparring match with shareholders and suitor Microsoft, its results for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, will probably do little to dispel doubts over its ability to survive as an independent company.
[ Related reading: Yahoo settles with Icahn on board members ]
Yahoo had revenue of US$1.798 billion, a 6 percent increase from 2007's second quarter, the company announced Tuesday. Deducting the commissions it pays to its ad network publishers, Yahoo had revenue of $1.346 billion, up 8 percent but short of the $1.374 billion consensus expectation from financial analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
Net income fell to $131 million, or $0.09 per share, from $161 million, or $0.11 per share, in 2007's second quarter.
[ Related reading: Yahoo rejects MS proposal, seeks bid for entire company ]
On a pro forma basis, taking into account one-time items, net income was $139 million, or $0.10 per share, a penny short of analysts' consensus expectation. Yahoo had pro forma net income of $163 million, or $0.12 per share, in 2007's second quarter.
Still, Yahoo President Sue Decker said in a statement that the company made significant advancements in its turnaround strategy during the quarter. "We remain confident that our efforts will lead to a stronger and more profitable Yahoo," she said.
[ Related reading: Senate panel to hold hearing on Google-Yahoo search ad deal ]
Yahoo, which has been struggling on the financial and technology fronts for the past two years, has been embroiled in a corporate soap opera since Microsoft announced a bid to acquire the company in February.
That bid collapsed in May, leading to accusations from shareholders, including Icahn, that Yahoo's managers and board had purposely sabotaged the negotiations in order to protect their own financial interests, violating their fiduciary duty to shareholders.
Yahoo's management and board have denied the accusations, which have led to shareholder lawsuits, saying they negotiated in good faith and that ultimately it was Microsoft's decision to walk away. In the meantime, Yahoo has seen a steady parade of high-profile executives leave the company in recent months.
Yahoo this week managed to reach an agreement with Icahn, who had proposed an alternate slate of director candidates for the Aug. 1 shareholder meeting in order to unseat the entire board. By expanding the board and granting Icahn three seats, Yahoo convinced the billionaire investor to call off the plan. Icahn had indicated previously that his intention was to unseat Jerry Yang as Yahoo CEO and attempt to lure Microsoft back to the negotiating table, a possibility that now seems remote.
An attempt by Microsoft to acquire Yahoo's search advertising business also fell through, as Yahoo instead opted for an alternate deal to outsource part of that business to rival Google.
Although Yahoo managed to defuse Carl Icahn's proxy fight this week, a rare victory in its monthslong, tumultuous sparring match with shareholders and suitor Microsoft, its results for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, will probably do little to dispel doubts over its ability to survive as an independent company.
[ Related reading: Yahoo settles with Icahn on board members ]
Yahoo had revenue of US$1.798 billion, a 6 percent increase from 2007's second quarter, the company announced Tuesday. Deducting the commissions it pays to its ad network publishers, Yahoo had revenue of $1.346 billion, up 8 percent but short of the $1.374 billion consensus expectation from financial analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
Net income fell to $131 million, or $0.09 per share, from $161 million, or $0.11 per share, in 2007's second quarter.
[ Related reading: Yahoo rejects MS proposal, seeks bid for entire company ]
On a pro forma basis, taking into account one-time items, net income was $139 million, or $0.10 per share, a penny short of analysts' consensus expectation. Yahoo had pro forma net income of $163 million, or $0.12 per share, in 2007's second quarter.
Still, Yahoo President Sue Decker said in a statement that the company made significant advancements in its turnaround strategy during the quarter. "We remain confident that our efforts will lead to a stronger and more profitable Yahoo," she said.
[ Related reading: Senate panel to hold hearing on Google-Yahoo search ad deal ]
Yahoo, which has been struggling on the financial and technology fronts for the past two years, has been embroiled in a corporate soap opera since Microsoft announced a bid to acquire the company in February.
That bid collapsed in May, leading to accusations from shareholders, including Icahn, that Yahoo's managers and board had purposely sabotaged the negotiations in order to protect their own financial interests, violating their fiduciary duty to shareholders.
Yahoo's management and board have denied the accusations, which have led to shareholder lawsuits, saying they negotiated in good faith and that ultimately it was Microsoft's decision to walk away. In the meantime, Yahoo has seen a steady parade of high-profile executives leave the company in recent months.
Yahoo this week managed to reach an agreement with Icahn, who had proposed an alternate slate of director candidates for the Aug. 1 shareholder meeting in order to unseat the entire board. By expanding the board and granting Icahn three seats, Yahoo convinced the billionaire investor to call off the plan. Icahn had indicated previously that his intention was to unseat Jerry Yang as Yahoo CEO and attempt to lure Microsoft back to the negotiating table, a possibility that now seems remote.
An attempt by Microsoft to acquire Yahoo's search advertising business also fell through, as Yahoo instead opted for an alternate deal to outsource part of that business to rival Google.
VMware Q2 revenue up 54 percent, but slightly misses Street
VMware reported revenue that slightly missed analyst expectations for its 2008 second quarter, a crucial period during which the virtualization leader ousted its cofounder from the CEO spot and lowered its revenue forecast for the year.
Revenue for its second quarter, which ended June 30, was US$456 million, an increase of 54 percent from the same period last year. However, consensus estimates from Thomson Financial analysts expected the company to fare slightly better, predicting $458.6 million in revenue for the quarter.
[ Related reading: VMware replaces CEO, shares plummet ]
Non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income for the quarter was $92 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, which was in line with analyst estimates. GAAP operating income for the quarter was $61 million, compared with $47 million for the same period last year. VMware's cash exceeded $1.5 billion, and deferred revenue was $721 million as of June 30, the company reported.
In the U.S., revenue for the quarter was up 43 percent to $240 million, and international revenue grew 68 percent to $216 million. Service revenue -- which includes support, subscription and professional services -- jumped 85 percent to $172 million, while revenue from software licenses was up 39 percent to $240 million.
On July 8 VMware replaced cofounder and then-CEO Diane Greene with former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz. A company statement hinted that Greene did not leave of her own volition.
VMware at the time also said its year-over-year revenue growth would be "modestly below" a previous estimate of 50 percent. On Tuesday, VMware said it expects revenue for 2008 to grow 42 percent to 45 percent from last year, which means it could be as much as 7 percent less than the company's original forecast.
VMware faces some of its toughest competition yet from its new CEO's former company Microsoft, which released its Hyper-V virtualization software for its Windows Server 2008 OS last month. Citrix Systems' XenServer software also is putting the heat on VMware, a subsidiary of EMC that made its initial public offering not quite a year ago. Microsoft and other companies are aiming to commoditize virtualization, VMware's bread and butter, as part of the OS.
Revenue for its second quarter, which ended June 30, was US$456 million, an increase of 54 percent from the same period last year. However, consensus estimates from Thomson Financial analysts expected the company to fare slightly better, predicting $458.6 million in revenue for the quarter.
[ Related reading: VMware replaces CEO, shares plummet ]
Non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income for the quarter was $92 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, which was in line with analyst estimates. GAAP operating income for the quarter was $61 million, compared with $47 million for the same period last year. VMware's cash exceeded $1.5 billion, and deferred revenue was $721 million as of June 30, the company reported.
In the U.S., revenue for the quarter was up 43 percent to $240 million, and international revenue grew 68 percent to $216 million. Service revenue -- which includes support, subscription and professional services -- jumped 85 percent to $172 million, while revenue from software licenses was up 39 percent to $240 million.
On July 8 VMware replaced cofounder and then-CEO Diane Greene with former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz. A company statement hinted that Greene did not leave of her own volition.
VMware at the time also said its year-over-year revenue growth would be "modestly below" a previous estimate of 50 percent. On Tuesday, VMware said it expects revenue for 2008 to grow 42 percent to 45 percent from last year, which means it could be as much as 7 percent less than the company's original forecast.
VMware faces some of its toughest competition yet from its new CEO's former company Microsoft, which released its Hyper-V virtualization software for its Windows Server 2008 OS last month. Citrix Systems' XenServer software also is putting the heat on VMware, a subsidiary of EMC that made its initial public offering not quite a year ago. Microsoft and other companies are aiming to commoditize virtualization, VMware's bread and butter, as part of the OS.
Mozilla to release first Firefox 3.1 preview Friday
Mozilla Tuesday set Friday as the ship date for the first preview edition of Firefox 3.1, the fast-track update it hopes to polish off by late this year or early in 2009.
In a meeting Tuesday, Mozilla developers and managers nailed down details of Firefox 3.1, including the release date for the first alpha. Previously, Mozilla had tentatively scheduled the alpha for sometime this month.
"Still on track for Friday release," said the notes posted online after the morning meeting.
Mozilla froze the Firefox 3.1 code Monday and will begin to assemble builds of the preview Tuesday, the notes continued. Only the US-English version of the browser will be tested before it's posted to Mozilla's servers.
Although the alpha is a work in progress -- numerous features Mozilla wants to ship with the final won't make it into the first preview -- several changes will debut Friday, including improvements to the location bar and enhanced Ctrl-Tab tab switching that presents thumbnails when cycling through open tabs.
The new Ctrl-Tab presentation and behavior -- on the latter front, pressing Ctrl-Tab switches between current and last-viewed tabs rather than simply moving to the next tab to the right -- was, like many of the features slated for Firefox 3.1, originally meant to be included with Firefox 3.0.
In May, when Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's chief engineer, first talked about Firefox 3.1, he said that the update would comprise features that didn't make it into the June release, but were "nearly complete."
The list of features being considered for 3.1 range from support for offline storage by Web apps to adding support for the Cross-Site XMLHttpRequest (Cross-Site XHR) specification, a still-under-development specification that Microsoft Corp. recently said it is also investigating.
In a meeting Tuesday, Mozilla developers and managers nailed down details of Firefox 3.1, including the release date for the first alpha. Previously, Mozilla had tentatively scheduled the alpha for sometime this month.
"Still on track for Friday release," said the notes posted online after the morning meeting.
Mozilla froze the Firefox 3.1 code Monday and will begin to assemble builds of the preview Tuesday, the notes continued. Only the US-English version of the browser will be tested before it's posted to Mozilla's servers.
Although the alpha is a work in progress -- numerous features Mozilla wants to ship with the final won't make it into the first preview -- several changes will debut Friday, including improvements to the location bar and enhanced Ctrl-Tab tab switching that presents thumbnails when cycling through open tabs.
The new Ctrl-Tab presentation and behavior -- on the latter front, pressing Ctrl-Tab switches between current and last-viewed tabs rather than simply moving to the next tab to the right -- was, like many of the features slated for Firefox 3.1, originally meant to be included with Firefox 3.0.
In May, when Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's chief engineer, first talked about Firefox 3.1, he said that the update would comprise features that didn't make it into the June release, but were "nearly complete."
The list of features being considered for 3.1 range from support for offline storage by Web apps to adding support for the Cross-Site XMLHttpRequest (Cross-Site XHR) specification, a still-under-development specification that Microsoft Corp. recently said it is also investigating.
Colorado 'Spam King' walks away from prison camp
Convicted penny-stock spammer Eddie Davidson walked away from a federal minimum-security prison camp in Colorado on Sunday, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Davidson, 35, had been serving 21 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to criminal spam charges in December. He is now considered an escapee and is being pursued by U.S. marshals, with help from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and local police.
He earned millions of dollars between 2003 and 2006 by operating a spamming operation, called Power Promoters, out of his home. He would change the header information in his messages to make it appear as if they had come from legitimate companies such as AOL and then send them out to hundreds of thousands of addresses.
Davidson sent the messages on behalf of an unnamed Houston company, court filings state. He was asked to promote about 19 penny-stock companies, including one called Advanced Power Line Technologies in 2006 and 2007. He would earn fees based on the trading volume of the stocks he was promoting.
The business was lucrative: The Houston company paid Davidson about US$1.4 million for his services, court documents state.
Between 2003 and 2006, when his primary source of income was spam, bank account deposits into Davidson's account totalled about $3.5 million.
Davidson, of Bennett, Colorado, had been incarcerated at the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs.
Davidson, 35, had been serving 21 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to criminal spam charges in December. He is now considered an escapee and is being pursued by U.S. marshals, with help from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and local police.
He earned millions of dollars between 2003 and 2006 by operating a spamming operation, called Power Promoters, out of his home. He would change the header information in his messages to make it appear as if they had come from legitimate companies such as AOL and then send them out to hundreds of thousands of addresses.
Davidson sent the messages on behalf of an unnamed Houston company, court filings state. He was asked to promote about 19 penny-stock companies, including one called Advanced Power Line Technologies in 2006 and 2007. He would earn fees based on the trading volume of the stocks he was promoting.
The business was lucrative: The Houston company paid Davidson about US$1.4 million for his services, court documents state.
Between 2003 and 2006, when his primary source of income was spam, bank account deposits into Davidson's account totalled about $3.5 million.
Davidson, of Bennett, Colorado, had been incarcerated at the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)